The explosive POLITICO story – which broke Sunday night – detailing a series of allegations that Herman Cain acted inappropriately toward two female subordinates when he was the head of the Restaurant Association in the 1990’s is the beginning of the end of the Cain Campaign.

When the media smells blood, they move in with full force. And Mr. Cain and the Cain Campaign’s dysfunctional internal operation have not dealt well with this problem. They have known – for weeks – that their rival campaigns, private investigators and other media have been looking for this story – yet, when it broke, they seemed to be caught flat-footed.

That tells us much about Cain: he is not telling his own staff what happened – thus leaving his spokesmen flat-footed.

What is happening behind the scenes is the media – and Cain’s rivals – are digging up more instances of alleged womanizing by Mr. Cain. The POLITICO story opens the door for these stories. And Mr. Cain’s pathetic attempt to answer these charges yesterday on the sidewalk outside the Face the Nation studios will only make the investigators hunt harder.

Prediction: this is the beginning of Cain’s downfall. It won’t happen right away. Some conservatives will rally behind Cain and say this is all an Establishment “plot” against a conservative. Ann Coulter said as much on Fox Sunday night.

But more is coming – and it will spell the end of the Cain Mutiny.

The bigger question is: where do Cain’s votes go? They are mostly Tea Party votes and thus don’t want to go to Romney. They previously were with Trump, Bachmann and Perry. Soon they will move again. But to which candidate?

With some positive economic numbers – 2.5% 3rd quarter GDP growth and a great October on the market – are things finally turning around for President Obama on the economy?

Is the President now the favorite to win re-election in 2012?

What of Hillary’s stunning poll numbers against ALL Republicans?

Can a Mormon win a national election?

What does that Cain smoking ad mean?

Are we accelerating toward an inevitable Third Candidate in 2012 and can that Independent Third Candidate actually win in November 2012?

All this and much more will be answered this week as Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen and John LeBoutillier analyze the 2012 Presidential race on CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL on www.live.Foxnews.com on Monday at 2 PM ET.

This is TV’s only show that features only people who have done politics for a living – no blow-hard, know-it-all, pontificating, tired, opinion-spewing, boring Talking Head so-called journalists – or self-proclaimed “strategists” - here. CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL has no phony arguments; no interrupting and yelling, no party-ordered Talking Points and no “agendas.” Instead, we let the viewers watch what would be a typical Senior Campaign Staff meeting – either in the White House or up on Capitol Hill – from people who have actually been in those meetings.

So, just before 2 PM on Monday, go to http://live.foxnews.com/ and get your computer all set and the volume just right – you can also set your computer to Full-Screen size - and enjoy this unique political show. Or, if that does not work for you, go to http://www.foxnews.com/ and then click “video” and you should be connected. (Several people report that they have a lot of trouble getting Foxnews.com to work. I apologize for this – in advance – and I will email the links to the show to you the next day.)

And read other things at www.johnlebout.com

Is America depressed and in a depression?

Can the G.W. Bush-clone-cowboy-warrior Barack Obama, fresh off the take-downs of Osama Bin Laden and Muammer Quaddafi, ride these muscular foreign policy successes to re-election in 2012?

Has Herman Cain been hurt by gaping holes in his 9-9-9 plan and his odd answers to questions about trading all the Gitmo prisoners for one American hostage and his flip-flopping on abortion?

Did any Republican candidate emerge from the Las Vegas debate better off than they entered the debate? What of the Perry-Romney dust-up over illegal immigration?

Are we accelerating toward an inevitable Third Candidate in 2012 and can that Independent Third Candidate actually win in November 2012?

All this and much more will be answered this week as Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen and John LeBoutillier analyze the 2012 Presidential race on CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL on www.live.Foxnews.com on Monday at 2 PM ET.

This is TV’s only show that features only people who have done politics for a living – no blow-hard, know-it-all, pontificating, tired, opinion-spewing, boring Talking Head so-called journalists – or self-proclaimed “strategists” - here. CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL has no phony arguments; no interrupting and yelling, no party-ordered Talking Points and no “agendas.” Instead, we let the viewers watch what would be a typical Senior Campaign Staff meeting – either in the White House or up on Capitol Hill – from people who have actually been in those meetings.

So, just before 2 PM on Monday, go to www.live.Foxnews.com and get your computer all set and the volume just right – and enjoy this unique political show.

And read other things at www.johnlebout.com

Watching Tuesday’s GOP debate in Las Vegas this is what Republican voters are looking for and have yet to find: a leader who presents a vision to us—the American people—of how he or she will reverse a widespread sense of national decline and then lead an American revival.

Instead, all we see are quibbling, un-imaginitive candidates who focus on small things instead of the biggest issue of all: how to inspire a dispirited American people and infuse them with a belief that America’s best days are not in the past.

On technical grades, Herman Cain withstood withering attacks on his 9-9-9 plan, but what might hurt him has now been established: an average taxpayer will pay more under his 9-9-9 plan than he or she currently pays. If that argument proves to be accepted as true, then Herman Cain’s popularity will begin to wane. He is so intertwined with his plan that when that plan becomes less popular, so will he. (This happened in 1996 with Steve Forbes and his momentarily-popular Flat Tax; as soon as the people looked at it and compared it to their current taxes, the Flat Tax—and Steve Forbes—dropped like a rock.)

However, Cain is an enormously refreshing candidate who you cannot help but like. He is the repository of most Tea Party voters who like an out-of-the-box, non-politician.

Mitt Romney seemed a bit more petulant than his carefully-controlled performances in the three recent debates. He clearly dislikes Rick Perry, even though Perry has flat-lined as a candidate and should basically be ignored. But Romney couldn’t hold back and really tore into the lost-looking, in-over-his-head Texas Governor. This exchange made Romney look like less of a man – and certainly less presidential.

Ron Paul continued to say things that previous GOP presidential candidates would never have had the courage to say—especially about aid to Israel, closing foreign bases, not building a fence on our southern border and the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

Newt Gingrich always does well in these debates because he breaks the format, critiques the questions – and at the end of this debate criticized all the other candidates for “quibbling.” He was—and is—right. You get to the White House by going big and high – not low and petty.

Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum were almost invisible in this debate and they have no impact on the race anymore; they have become vanity candidates who stay in the race through Iowa—and then disappear.

Conclusion: not the best debate for the Republican Party overall. We did not present a Reaganesque, positive, hopeful, visionary face to the American people.

Is the growing OCCUPY WALL STREET movement—combined with the TEA PARTY—a sign that a new American Political Revolution has already begun?

Is Herman Cain for real? Will his 9-9-9 Tax Plan catapult him to the presidency—or will it—and he—be eviscerated by the Political Class?

Can Mitt Romney, who excites no one, still win the GOP nomination and then defeat President Obama? Or is he another Bob Dole/John McCain: a boring Republican nominee who can’t excite anyone and loses in November 2012?

Is a Third Option inevitable for 2012? Can an Independent Third Candidate actually win in November 2012?

All this and much more will be answered this week as Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen and John LeBoutillier analyze the 2012 Presidential race on CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL on www.live.Foxnews.com on Monday at 2 PM ET.

This is TV’s only show that features only people who have done politics for a living – no blow-hard, know-it-all, pontificating, tired, opinion-spewing, boring Talking Head so-called journalists—or self-proclaimed “strategists”—here. CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL has no phony arguments; no interrupting and yelling, no party-ordered Talking Points and no “agendas.” Instead, we let the viewers watch what would be a typical Senior Campaign Staff meeting—either in the White House or up on Capitol Hill—from people who have actually been in those meetings.

So, just before 2 PM on Monday, go to www.live.Foxnews.com and get your computer all set and the volume just right—and enjoy this unique political show.

And read other things at www.johnlebout.com

Both the GOP presidential nominating race—already underway—and next year’s general election are certain to mirror the near-panic and almost-desperation of the American people as they face one key question: is America declining and on a track to permanent ruin?

None of today’s Republican candidates—or President Obama—ever talks about this.

But that is no surprise: the American people are always ahead of the Political Class.

Hanging over the American electorate is: a mood more pessimistic, fearful, worried, and furious-at-government-and- financial-elites and-the-media than at any time in American history.

While the Tea Party believes a debt-ridden Federal Government is to blame, others believe our system is corrupt—or a “rigged game” that favors the rich and powerful over the rest of the American people.

All of this is the context of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Now, the GOP race: how can a southern-based, heavily evangelical Christian political party nominate a northern-based Mormon?

How can a political party that abhors government-mandated health care plans nominate the first governor in the country to actually impose such a plan on his state?

How can a political party comprised of Tea Party activists nominate the one candidate who does not have a good relationship with the Tea Party?

And yet it is “conventional wisdom” to say that Mitt Romney is the “GOP front-runner.”

Yet each new aspirant with Tea Party support—beginning with Donald Trump last spring and then followed by Bachmann and Perry and now Cain—have all surged to a lead or a close second to Romney—however briefly—before self-imploding. (Cain has not deteriorated—yet.)

What does this tell us about Romney? He is resilient and tougher than he looks. But he is also a lousy political candidate because he does not connect with voters. Period.

Connecting cannot be taught. You either have it—or you don’t. And Mitt doesn’t have it.

So any votes he’s getting now are the result of the failures of his opponents. And that applies to a race versus Barack Obama next fall: Romney gets the anti-Obama voters—and there are a lot of them. It may even be enough to win.

But you can bet that Team Obama—with the complicity of his supporters in the in-the-tank-for-Obama/so-called Mainstream Media—will unleash eight months of merciless attacks on Romney, painting him a phony and a fraud who has taken every conceivable side of every issue (mostly true) and a brutal lay-off artist in private business at Bain Capital (also mostly true). Look for commercials interviewing entire towns of people who lost their jobs when Romney broke up their companies and sold off its parts for huge profits—and thus “enriched” himself.

At the same time, look for the possibility that Team Obama tries to run a pseudo-in-name-only Tea Party candidate for President as a Third Option—all to siphon 5% or more of the vote from Romney.

That 5% might just be enough to tilt a few key states to Obama—and give him a victory in a how-low-can-you-go gutter campaign.

Around April or May—with a nation thoroughly sick by then of both Romney and Obama - there will be a political vacuum waiting for a Third Option.

If the right person indeed steps forward—a savvy anti-politician who is actually a great politician—he can actually win the presidency in this chaotic year.

A true Independent who runs against the Political Class can address both the political and financial corruption that has brought us down.

All of this inside a nation which wants a race to determine how to reverse America’s decline.

Will the 2012 campaign mirror that decline—or be the first step in America’s resurrection?

Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen and John LeBoutillier will analyze the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races on CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL on www.live.Foxnews.com on Monday at our new time: 2 PM ET.

The latest Gallup Poll shows the American people more negative about their government than ever measured before. In such an environment, is a Chris Christie late-entry likely to happen this week? Is a Third Option inevitable for 2012? Has the New American Political Revolution begun?

You can read John LeBoutillier’s Foxnews.com take on whether Chris Christie is the latest player in the GOP’s Savior Syndrome.

All this and much more will be discussed this week on CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL.

This is TV’s only show that features only people who have done politics for a living—no blow-hard, know-it-all, pontificating, tired, opinion-spewing, boring Talking Head so-called journalists—or self-proclaimed “strategists” - here. CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL has no phony arguments; no interrupting and yelling, no party-ordered Talking Points and no “agendas.” Instead, we let the viewers watch what would be a typical Senior Campaign Staff meeting—either in the White House or up on Capitol Hill—from people who have actually been in those meetings.

So, just before 2pm on Monday, go to www.live.Foxnews.com and get your computer all set and the volume just right—and enjoy this unique political show.

And read other things at www.johnlebout.com